by Tad Williams
Opal frequently questioned her husband's sanity for agreeing to take on such a task, but she spent more than a little time each evening watching him at work, asking questions and even arguing a point from time to time, though she professed not to care about any of it. Flint also came in to watch the work, studying the scene as though to learn it by heart, but if he thought in any way about what the maps represented, he kept such thoughts to himself.
Flint was not as talkative as the last time the two of them had left the temple. In fact, he was silent.
Well, that's back to the way things always were, isn't it? Chert didn't mind too much, anyway: he was trying to see things in his head in a way he hadn't before, trying to notice how the tunnels and caverns actually fit together instead of relying on the usual Guild shorthand, which was a better way to think about some things but not so good for others. He had brought several pieces of lamp-coral that were bigger than what was ordinarily used for traveling-if he stumbled across a significant detail for his maps, he wanted to be able to see it well enough to record it properly.
The two of them made their way down to the bottom of the Cascade Stair, but when they got there, Chert turned and could not see Flint. He had a moment of panic-panic and something else less definable-and then the boy came around the corner. He had only fallen a few steps behind. Still, something about the moment troubled Chert.
It came to him as they walked on. The last time he and the boy had been here looking for Chaven, the boy hadn't just fallen behind, he had got himself truly lost. When Chert found him, they had also discovered the crack in the wall and the telltale smell of the Sea in the Depths, the silvery lake around the Shining Man's island where Chert had come so close to losing the boy forever. Now, though, the mundane side of it all came to him.
In his maps, he had traced what he believed must be the opening above the Sea in the Depths that stretched all the way to the surface-although he could only guess at its true shape and path. But he had forgotten to show anything of the spot where the boy had discovered a hole into the side of that shaft, and where Chert had been able to smell the Sea in the Depths' unique scent-something that he still could not name. It might be the only place where the chimney leading up from the Mysteries could be entered. It belonged on his maps.
"Boy, do you remember the last time we were out, and you got away down a side tunnel and then you called me…?"
To Chert's mild astonishment, not only did Flint remember but immediately turned and began leading his adoptive father in what seemed like more or less the correct direction.
The journey seemed longer than Chert remembered, but Flint soon proved that he knew the route very well indeed, leading his stepfather through Five Arches and up the Great Delve-Stormstone's long passage that surfaced all the way on the far side of the bay-and before another hour had passed, they reached the dead end of the corridor and the black gap between two slabs that had turned out to be not merely another shadow, but a hole into the great chimney that led up from the Sea in the Depths. As he leaned close, Chert could again smell the faint tang of the sea.
"It must lead all the way to the surface," he said out loud. "Must do. Why does no one upground or down seem to know of it?"
"What is it, Papa Chert?" There was an odd tone in the boy's voice, the measured speech he used sometimes that seemed too mature for his years. "What are you saying?"
"This… chimney, this hole in front of us. As far as I can tell it goes all the way up from the… the place where I found you that time"-for some reason Chert was reluctant to speak the Shining Man's name-"to the surface of Midlan's Mount."
"Ah." Flint nodded slowly, but there was still something strange about his behavior. "Then why doesn't the ocean come in?"
"The opening must be somewhere above the waterline, or everything here really would be flooded with water," Chert explained. "In fact, the Salt Pool is at sea level, so if the ocean got in, everything beneath there would be drowned-the Maze, the Five Arches, even the temple."
Chert took one of the largest chunks of coral in his fist, tightened his headlamp so it wouldn't fall off, and then slipped his arm into the crevice. He sucked in his gut to make himself narrower so he could get his body through the opening as well.
It was impossible to make out much past his own arm and the glare of the coral chunk in his fist, but two things struck him immediately: this great chimney was wider than he had guessed, perhaps longer than a rope-throw across; and there was a sizable ledge just a few yards away from him along the wall of the roughly cylindrical space, and a black crevice behind it big enough for a man his size to stand in upright. Could that be a tunnel? It would be a way to get in and have a better look at the great pit before him.
He held onto Flint's belt so tightly his knuckles ached while he let the boy, who was thinner than he was, lean out and look at the ledge Chert had spotted.
"Do you think we could muddle out where that is, lad?" he called.
Flint did not reply until he was all the way back in the crevice again. "Think so," was all he said. His strange, adult mood seemed to have passed.
In fact, it took Chert and the boy the better part of two hours to find the spot, and they ate their midday meal while walking. This was in part because they had to go far down before they could find their way back up to the correct spot, and also because Chert, to his shame, had estimated the distance incorrectly, and several times made Flint turn back because he felt certain the boy had gone too far.
The ledge he had seen was not a few paces away but hundreds, and far bigger than he had guessed. When they finally located it, Chert was astonished to discover it was no mere lip of stone but a great, broad ledge a dozen Funderling cubits deep and three or four times as wide, with room for far more folk than just Chert and Flint to stand looking down into darkness. Even the crack leading in from the mostly natural passageway outside was in fact a rift large enough to drive one of the Big Folk's wagons through.
A shiver of awe and even terror passed through Chert. The Pit, he thought. Is this the J'ezh'kral Pit itself, and I alone have found it? In Funderling legends that was the hole in the earth that led down to the Lord of the Hot Wet Stone's fabled domain, the place where the Funderlings themselves had been created. But what else could this be, a chasm that stretched from the surface of the world all the way down into the deepest Mysteries? And why had no one else ever mapped it before? Did the Metamorphic Brothers know? Were they hiding it from the rest of their people?
Get your scaffolding put up before you take a bad tumble, Blue Quartz, he told himself. Don't start thinking about such things. You'll run mad or scare yourself to death. Put it on the map. Put it all on the map.
"Just sit quiet for me a moment, lad," he told him. "This won't take long."
It was the boy's good behavior, paradoxically, that made Chert aware of how long they had been in the place: he had made as many notes and sketches as he could of the ledge and the immense pit and was just starting to put his tools away when he realized that he had not even heard Flint sigh for what must have been an hour or more. He turned, miserably certain he would find the boy gone, but Flint was sitting calmly a few yards away, his eyes fixed on the indefinite middle distance of the great pit.
"By the Elders, but I've asked a lot of you today, boy, and you've done everything I've asked," Chert said with a sudden burst of pride. "Let's go back and I'll see if I can't get my hands on some bread and honey that those greedy monks have been keeping for themselves-you deserve something good."
Flint smiled-a rare occurrence, but he did dearly love honey, which was hard to get in Funderling Town these days. The boy quickly climbed to his feet and led Chert back to an open passage that would lead them out to the Great Delve. But when Chert stepped into the wider space, he bumped into Flint, who had stopped, and then they both stood and stared at the stranger who had appeared in the passage before them.
No, not a stranger, Chert realized after a heartbeat; he had seen the thin,
strange face before, the preoccupied gaze, even the hair that looked as though it had been cut with a piece of dull flint. In fact, he remembered every terrifying moment they had spent together, including their death sentence from the she-demon known as Yasammez. What he could not understand was why the stranger was alive.
"Gil," he said. "Your name is Gil."
"Yes, I once was Gil. Before that I was Kayyin. Now I am Kayyin again."
"Do you remember me? I'm Chert Blue Quarz and this is my son, Flint. You and I went to the dark lady together-Yasammez. I'll be honest, I did not expect to see you again-it seemed certain she was going to kill you."
"She still may. Some days it seems like a better idea to her than others." He shrugged with the slippery Qar grace that seemed odd from such a manlike form. "That is the way of families."
It took a moment to sink in. "Hold a moment-family? You and the dark lady?"
Kayyin nodded. "She is my mother. I did not remember that for a while."
Chert did not know what to say to any of this. "Well, it is… good to see you, Gil. Kayyin." He shook his head. "It is strange to meet you this way in the middle of nowhere! What brings you out here?"
"Oh, I often walk for a long time," Kayyin said. "And it has been long indeed since I have seen any of these, our old sacred places here beneath Midlan's Mount."
"Well, you must come and have a drink with me back at the temple. Let us go and dig out a cask of Brother Brewer's best and you can tell me what has happened since I last saw you…"
Kayyin shook his head. "I am sorry, friend Chert-perhaps another time. There is something I must do now."
"Of course," Chert said. "Another time, then."
When they reached the wide passage known as the Great Delve, Kayyin turned away from the direction of the temple. "Fare you well, Chert Blue Quartz. One day I hope we can have that drink together."
"I cannot pretend to be surprised by anything anymore," Chert said to Flint as they watched the fairy go. "Come, lad, we've tarried out here too long. Let's be on our way. Opal will doubtless be back for the evening meal and will skin me if we're not there. And if she finds I took you out of the temple, she'll sew the hide back on me and then skin me again, so let's make fast time going back." But the thought Chert could not get out of his mind had nothing to do with Opal. He kept wondering what exactly Kayyin was doing out here, in this out-of-the-way place. Could it truly be simple coincidence? When the nearby chimney-the Pit as Chert had begun to think of it-led all the way down to the Mysteries, the spot that currently obsessed the Funderlings, the Qar, and even the southern king, the autarch?
Coincidence? Truly?
"What do you think of Copper's idea?" Vansen asked as he and Cinnabar broke bread in the shallow scrape that sufficed for a commander's field station. The magister had come all the way out to Moonless Reach, where Ferras Vansen and a few hundred Funderlings and Qar had held back the autarch's forces for three days, but Vansen was worried about having Cinnabar there for long. It was too dangerous a spot, and Cinnabar was too important. The Guild that had given him sweeping powers had shown wisdom, Vansen had long since decided-Cinnabar Quicksilver was that rare politician whose gifts made it easier to get the hard but necessary things done.
"His plan to sneak men around behind the autarch's vanguard?" Cinnabar shook his head. "Not a chance it will work. You've heard the same reports I have-Copper and Jasper have already given up half the length of that system of caverns. They'll never hold it until we can get reinforcements there, let alone long enough to dig around behind the southerners. Those old tunnels must be full of rubble. No, we must drop back and try to hold them at Ocher Bar." Cinnabar sighed, then gulped a long draught of his mossbrew.
Vansen followed suit. The drink would never replace ale, he thought, or even the sour mead his father had liked to make-the Funderling ale tasted altogether too much like wet dirt for his taste-but he had drunk worse things in his day, or at least so he had been told afterward by those who had carried him back to the guardroom. "I'll leave it to you to tell Copper, then."
He looked out across the room where Jackdaw, one of the Qar war leaders, was supervising a wall being built across the center of the chamber by a work gang of Funderlings. Vansen wished they all had another few days to prepare-he was confident that given enough time, the clever Funderlings could make even wide Moonless Reach nearly impregnable-but it was not to be. "What is the latest news from Copper and Jasper, anyway?"
"They are still holding the lower half of the reach, but it cannot truly be called anything but a slow retreat. Jasper says they are taking terrible losses. May the Earth Elders forgive us-most of his soldiers are little more than boys themselves…"
"Yes-may the Three lift them high." Vansen made a sign on his chest and his face clenched with unhappiness, but he carefully made it neutral again. "And what else can you tell me? Any word from my master Avin Brone upground?"
"Nothing. And we cannot find a way to get any more messages to him. We have tried several times to slip someone through the main gate, but the Big Folk guards will not permit it-they say that any Funderling who wishes to come up to the castle will have to seek the permission of Lord Protector Tolly himself. And the less well-known routes either lead to the mainland and the autarch, like Stormstone's Great Delve, or are guarded by the lord protector's soldiers like the way into the basement of Chaven's old house. Wherever we choose, our enemies are waiting for us like a hungry cat outside a mousehole."
Vansen grimaced. It still sickened him to hear Hendon Tolly spoken of as anyone's "protector": every man among the royal guards knew about the youngest Tolly brother's interests and practices. "Do not risk trying to send anyone else through the main gate," Vansen said. "Tolly is a monster but a clever one. He would have all our secrets out of any messenger before long, even you or me."
"Then your Brone and any help he might send remain lost to us, at least for now. In any case, Captain, he and the rest of your people have enough horror to face already-the autarch bombards them day and night. There are nights I can hear the cannonballs crashing into the walls even down here, through a millionweight of stone." Cinnabar rubbed his small, thick finger in spilled mossbrew and made a few dark circles on the stone of the cavern wall. "So we must prepare for another retreat. I am truly sorry, Captain Vansen. We have asked much of you, but we have given you little to accomplish it with."
"You've given me all you have. What more could anyone do?"
Cinnabar smiled-perhaps the weariest, most lackluster smile Vansen had ever seen on the cheerful magister's face. "What more, indeed, my friend?"
Shortly after Vansen sent Cinnabar back to the temple, the autarch's forces made another attempt to drive the defenders out of the Moonless Reach. The attack was swift and sudden. One of the ghastly skorpa-monsters came lurching over the makeshift barricades the Funderlings had built across the reach, scattering the guards before it like beetles. By the time that Vansen's men had formed a spear wall against the thing and stopped it, a company of the autarch's riflemen were spilling out of a side tunnel into the wide reach. Within moments, the southerners had set their shooting sticks and began firing. Their rifle balls skidded harmlessly off the askorab's shell, but several of the less well-protected Funderlings and Qar fell in the first volley. Vansen shouted at them to fall back to the larger but incomplete wall at the far end of the reach where the rest of the company was already sheltering. His troop made a chaotic retreat, but a well-timed volley of arrows from the tiny contingent of Qar bowmen gave them just enough cover; only a few more were lost before they all achieved the security of the wall.
Vansen crawled to Jackdaw, who was calmly wrapping a length of torn sleeve around the bloodied meat of his own upper arm where a ball had hit him. The blood was red even in the dim lantern light, but that was almost the only thing about Jackdaw that seemed ordinary to Vansen. The fairy's face, scrawny and so long-nosed that he seemed more bird than man, was covered with an iridescent down that in st
ronger light seemed purple or sometimes even pink and blue, but now seemed just black. It made his bright yellow eyes even more startling. His body, too, wherever it showed between the few pieces of light armor he wore, seemed to be covered in the same kind of feathery down.
Vansen had stared at him for a few moments during their first meeting, but the Qar's martial personality had quickly become all that mattered: the fairy had clearly been around a battlefield, and although what ran in his veins was the right color for blood, it seemed by his actions to be something altogether slower and colder.
"We have no more serpentine or we could have brought down the stone above us and ended this," said Jackdaw, putting his head above the barrier to look around as if leaden balls were not cracking and hissing past him. He turned to Dolomite, one of Jasper's warders and the ranking Funderling warrior in Moonless Reach. "Is that what the black sand is called here? My people call it Crooked's Fire."
"Don't know about crooked anything," said Dolomite and grimaced. Like Sledge, he had witnessed much of the worst his own small world had to offer and did not like people to see him excited. "Blasting powder, we call it. But if we don't have it, we don't have it. We'll just have to fall back to Ocher Bar and hold them there."
"Still," said Jackdaw, "it would be nice to have a few of those bursting fireballs your little friend brought to you, Vansen. We could roll one of them directly under that foul-smelling seliqet and smash him to slivers."
"We're getting hold of as much as we can, but at the moment we don't have it," Vansen said tightly. "Any other ideas?"
"Keep sticking them with things until they're all dead," suggested Dolomite.
Another wave of musket balls snapped by overhead. The cavern echoed with the roar of the guns until Ferras Vansen thought it might come down around their ears. "You are as clever a tactician as Sledge Jasper," he told the Funderling. "Now, if you've nothing else to do, let's get back to the business of trying to kill that monster."